Why the Mercedes is still by far the best package
TECHNICAL
TeCHNICAL
PAOLO
FILISETTI
Technical
Editor
every race now provides us more
data to judge the Mercedes W05 as
the phenomenal car it appears to
be. It might seem trivial saying that
but in all honestly, the reality is not
as straightforward as it seems from
the results.
This race, the last flyaway of
this first leg of the championship
was particularly interesting, as
in many ways this circuit gave
an even clearer picture of the
current technical pecking order and
strengths of the teams.
Mercedes leads flawlessly with
a car that has the best overall
efficiency in terms of aero balance
and best power output of the Power
Unit (PU). The sector analysis in fact
shows how Hamilton, and Rosberg
were hyper-competitive in each
sector of the track. If we take into
account the t T1 chart, we see that
the two Mercedes are at the lead,
but that Rosberg’s car was capable
of a top speed better than any other,
thanks to a set up slightly lighter in
terms of downforce load. Even so,
we can’t consider his setup as an
extreme one, as in the case of the
Williams’ pair.
On the opposite side of the fence,
we can assume that both Red
Bulls and Ferraris chose an high-
downforce level setup, with just a
slight difference between the two
RB10s, and a greater one between
the two red cars, with Raikkonen
slightly heavier in terms of load
compared to Alonso.
The analysis of the second sector
of the track is the one that confirms
our first assumptions. In fact, we
can see that the two Mercedes, even
in this sector, were among the best,
with Hamilton just struggling a bit,
compared to Rosberg. The Red Bulls
and Alonso, show a similar set-up,
accordingly producing a pretty
good result in this sector, setting
respectively the second (Alonso)
third and fourth best sector times.
Astonishingly, the speed analysis
for this sector shows Rosberg as
the fastest, with a car that also set
the best sector time in this twisty
section of the track. Hamilton
instead was just the fifth slowest car.
continued next page
RACE
SECTOR
ANALYSIS
T1
TIME
ANALYSIS
25.5
26
26.5
27
27.5
ALONSO
RAIKKONEN
VETTEL
RICCIARDO
MAGNUSSEN
BUTTON
MASSA
BOTTAS
HAMILTON
ROSBERG
T1
T1
RACE
SECTOR
ANALYSIS
T1
SPEED
ANALYSIS
270
275
280
285
290
ALONSO
RAIKKONEN
VETTEL
RICCIARDO
MAGNUSSEN
BUTTON
MASSA
BOTTAS
HAMILTON
ROSBERG
SPEED
1
SPEED
1
46
GPWEEK.com // 46
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